“My Paper, My Paper”: Reflections on the embodied production of postcolonial geographical responsibility in academic writing

This article asks the question: what are my responsibilities as a postcolonial geographical writer? It takes as its starting point three extracts from texts written by the writer on their journey towards becoming an academic: a catalyst moment, a moment of self-production as an academic, and a moment of (failed) academic production. This journey raises a problematic around the ways in which the body speaks in academic writing, and the remainder of the piece reviews the geographical literature on materiality in relation to the body, arguing that Deleuzian views of matter as agentic and creative are particularly helpful in comprehending and engaging responsibly with the indeterminate but insistent ways in which the body speaks in postcolonial academic writing.